My First Build

Silent Tristero · 8 Oct 2009 at 21:08

After some research and stuff, I've tried to put together a pretty cheap build. I want to be able to handle games at decent settings, nothing over the top. Won't be playing at particularly high resolutions, as my monitor is likely to be cheap as well. I've gone for some low cost components, on what is hopefully a good quality motherboard, allowing some upgrades over the next year or so.

Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 £70.99

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 £50.99

G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £66.99

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 £54

OCZ ModXStream Pro 400w £44.99

Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache £32.99

Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter £16.99

For a total of £349 with shipping (I already have a case, the Antec Thee Hundred).

The GPU is intended to be a relatively temporary solution, until I can upgrade it nearer christmas - I'm not sure if it's the best option for the £50-65 mark, though. Same applies to the Athlon 245, although depending on its performance I may wait a few extra months before I upgrade that.

Anyone have any thoughts? I'm torn between something like this, and going cheaper for a DDR2 build - but I have to say, I can't find 4Gb of DDR2 RAM for much less than the DDR3, and the board's are only about £10 less too. On the subject of the board, I'm also unsure - the Asus looks great, but there's a similar gigabyte model, I'm not sure which to 'trust'.

Thanks for any suggestions. My first computer, aside from this 4 year old laptop, so I'm taking my time picking stuff.

paininlife · 9 Oct 2009 at 01:18

i would suggest to go wid Western Digital HDD.....and if you can stretch a bit more then try to get Phenom II 550 , its 30 quid more but all worth it

Robert1986 · 9 Oct 2009 at 01:22

4670 can still pretty much handle anything today at high settings. I just have to turn AA off if I want to play at 1050. I have been playing Batman at 1050 with no AA and all the other settings off and get 50-60fps.

Its still a very capable card. Just don't expect to play Crysis on high with it though.

asoxedri · 9 Oct 2009 at 01:46

Wait till december, prices will drop, you'll have your money by then, you don't have to buy twice (gpu and cpu again). it is after all 8th Oct, not long left.

Silent Tristero · 9 Oct 2009 at 14:56

...

I'm hoping to have a system of some kind built in time to play Dragon Age on Nov 6th, been waiting for that game for ages

I see the sense in waiting, but it's also quite hard when some people say that the 4670 is capable, for example. Especially for someone as indecisive as me.

I know it's pure speculation, but are we likely to see the prices of 4xxx cards drop this year as a result of the 57xx's and stuff?

Robert1986 · 9 Oct 2009 at 15:29

Waiting a few months for price drops is silly. Prices are always dropping on hardware no matter what time of year you buy. Just buy now instead of waiting 2-3 months for the price drops. I'd only say wait if it was 2-3 weeks for a price drop.

Just buy now and enjoy your purchase, nothing you can do about prices dropping.

theufnk007 · 9 Oct 2009 at 15:34

I agree otherwise nobody would bloody buy anything :-)

Robert1986 · 9 Oct 2009 at 15:42

Just to add. I bought my 4670 on June 25 for £60.94(inc. VAT). I'm not exactly kicking myself on the foot on loosing out on £6.

reflux · 9 Oct 2009 at 15:45

Yeah, price drops are a difficult thing. Ideally you want to wait for the EOL because then stuff is uber cheap, but it's EOL for a reason...because it's obsolete.